Detailed record for Harley 647

Aratea, with extracts from Hyginus's Astronomica in the constellation figures

Origin

France, N. (diocese of Reims)

Date

9th century

Language

Latin

Script

Caroline minuscule

Decoration

22 full-page representations of the constellations in colours, often with text or scholia within the shapes (ff. 2v-6, 7-13v). Full-page diagram of the constellations in brown ink (f. 21v). Large diagram of the solar system in brown and red (f. 19). Small initials in brown or red. Text in red or blue.

f. 1 is a slightly later addition (c. 1000, England; see Köhler 1971).Inscribed 'Ego indignus sacerdos et monachus nomine Geruvigus repperi ac scripsi.' (f. 21v).The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury in the late 15th century: in its catalogue (see Ker 1964).Francis Babington (d. 1569?), college head: inscription 'Francis Babyngton' (f. 2v).The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Notes

Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.The oldest surviving exemplar of Cicero's Latin translation of Aratus's (c. 315-240 B. C.) Phaenomena.

Select bibliography

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 647.

Ottley, W.Y. 'On a Manuscript of Cicero's translation of Aratus, supposed to be of the 2d or 3d century', Archaeologia: Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, XXVI (1836), pp. 47-214.

Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 3.

Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 423.

Treasures of the British Library, ed. by Nicolas Barker and others (London: British Library, 2005), p. 51.